Re “Fishing for sport is cruel, inhumane”, Jeff Jacoby once again cobbles together some questionable facts, applies a simplistic pastiche of philosophical absolutes, slaps on a “gotcha” title, and calls it a column. His May 11th effort offers a terrific example of modern man: completely and utterly disengaged from the natural world and largely oblivious to what occurs outside his limited frame of reference. It’s also a wonderful example of what happens when one misses the forest for the trees.

If PETA and unwitting allies like Mr. Jacoby get their way and all recreational fishing is banned, fish in general would be far worse off. For the same practitioners of catch-and-release fishing are among the most ardent supporters of riparian and wetland habitats, clean air and water standards, and environmental protection – in short, everything that fish need to survive and flourish. From Trout Unlimited to Ted Turner, environmentally aware organizations and individuals expend significant money and personal effort to help protect and propagate fish species. Without those efforts, many of those same fish would be lost to us entirely.

In the meantime, while Mr. Jacoby works himself up into an anthropomorphic lather over the immorality of catch-and-release fishing the Bush administration continues its inexorable push to dismantle clean air and water regulations, reduce flows on some of our nation’s greatest rivers, pursue drilling in the Artic National Wildlife Refuge, increase logging in our national forests, and gut the Environmental Protection Agency.

Any one of these actions has implications – moral, ethical and practical – that dwarf those of catch-and-release fishing. Yet it is the “sport” fisher that earns Mr. Jacoby’s moral ire. What exactly does that say about him?

If I understand his logic, he says "it's cruel to catch anything without killing it" so to appease him we can either (1) kill everything we touch or (2) stop fishing.

Yet all fishing involves release, including commercial - from blue crab to lobster to clams to stripers to sturgeon. Fishing for food involves a lot of release, often dead by-catch that is unused from shellfish to swordfish on long lines in the name of fishing for food. While fishing for shrimp for food in the gulf, the by-catch casualty rate is 12 to 1 in favor of non-shrimp by-catch which is mostly dead upon sweeping off the deck. Should all commercial fishermen keep every schoolie they catch? How about juvenile salmon in the northwest? Should all short lobsters be eaten? How about blue crabs undersized, sturgeon of any size?

He seems to be focusing on a small fragment of the big picture, the fish's feelings, and missing the point at the same time.

If we're concerned about feelings, let's ask the fish:

Mr.fish - would you prefer to be clubbed, gutted and filleted while we destroy and discard your undesirable peers, or would you like me to remove this little lipring and let you go about your way?

Or the lobster:

Mr.Lobster - sorry about that entrapment, I know it must have been stressful to be incarcerated for the last 36 hours with your aggressive hardshell peers while your shell had not hardened quite yet, sorry about the gashed thorax he didn't mean it. Oh and little hardshell, you aren't quite big enough by law but since it would be mean if I didn't kill you I am going to eat you illegally instead of letting you reach legal size.

I can see the rod and reel striper commercial fisherman: "Damn another schoolie, that's 43 tonight. Hold's getting full - no room for any keepers if I ever get one. Hope the warden doesn't see me but then again Jacoby will be proud."

It's ludicrous to say fishing for food is acceptable when fishing for fun isn't unless you remove all limits and regulations and convert the fishery into a total death sentence for everything we touch.

C&R fishing when conducted properly using a single barbless hook for instance, or even better a fly , the survival ratios are remarkably high.

I'd write something to the globe but the likelihood that Jacoby will print it would be pretty low - I am confident that it would make him look like an idiot and I don't want to hurt his feelings